Alright. Here’s where I start delving into the film scores, so if classical music isn’t typically your thing, just bear with me for a moment. For those of you who actually do listen to your fair share of film scores, it’s likely you’re familiar with names like John Williams and Hans Zimmer. No doubt they’ve done some amazing stuff—Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Williams), Inception, Dark Knight, and Pirates of the Caribbean (Zimmer) to name a few. You don’t even really have to be a movie music expert to be pretty darn familiar with these iconic themes; however, one composer you probably all know but don’t is Alexandre Desplat. His work is everywhere! From Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom to George Clooney’s political thriller Ides of March. And he’s amazing! Yet hardly anyone ever recognizes his name. I’m still waiting for him to receive that Academy Award he’s deserved for so long.

One reason for his lack of general recognition is perhaps the fact that he doesn’t exactly have one particular style, and while I appreciate artists’ abilities to establish individual, creative identities, I’m enamored with Desplat’s wide range of works. With just sound he is able to tell any story and create any kind of world-real or imagined. I might actually consider that in itself a recognizably individual talent. I can’t tell you in which movie he first caught my attention—not because I don’t remember, but because it’s a film I don’t like to admit was an embarrassingly large part of my adolescence-but he’s brilliant in just about any project takes on, no matter the merit of the film itself. (If someone were absolutely desperate to find out what film I mean, I’m sure they’d be able to identify it from a list of his works, and in my defense, I’ve found a ton of great songs and artists from the soundtrack of this film that shall not be named.)

What I love about Desplat’s music is how it truly pulls you in to the world of each film—whether it be the rippling piano in the abstract subconscious of a young boy from 1950s Texas (Tree of Life) or the swelling orchestra surrounding the intimate recording session of a brave but stuttering King addressing an entire nation (The King’s Speech). In A Better Life (2011), Desplat uses a lone, acoustic guitar to pull us in to the world of Carlos Galindo (Demián Bichir), a gentle soul, a loving father, and an illegal immigrant from Mexico working as a gardner in contemporary Los Angeles. Galindo struggles to ensure a better life in the States for his son, who at first expresses little gratitude and respect for his father’s work. As the father-son relationship deepens over the course of the film, however, the music becomes an essential part of the story, providing the true emotional layers without dictating how we should feel but instead coaxing those feelings out from within us.

In the culminating moment of the film, the son sits across from Galindo before his father is to be deported and asks why he had him. The father begins to explain the pride he takes in watching his son grow like the trees in the gardens he nurtures with such care each day as a piano takes on a slow and steady march while all the while the lone guitar strums in and out of focus. You don’t even notice when exactly the melancholy stoicism of the piano gives way to the long, single notes of a horn and then a full, powerful orchestra of internal woes. The scene maintains a relatively understated tone-two people who barely speak louder than a whisper the whole time, who cry but never moan and sob-but the underlying desperate sadness and profoundness of the moment is embodied by the music without ever going over the top. Gradually, the tempo quickens to a fast and determined walking pace as the scene transitions from the emotional breakdown to the resilient rebirth that must come afterwards to ensure our survival or at least that of the next generation.

As far as I am aware, there are not many films made about 70 year-old men from Detroit, Michigan with a Wikipedia profile listing them as a singer-songwriter, guitarist, poet, excavation worker, and demolition worker. Searching for Sugar Man (2012) documents the quite unusual story of Sixto Rodriguez, who fits that very profile.

As a musical artist he became a star without even realizing it. How? While at the time he remained relatively unknown in the United States, Rodriguez became a household name in South Africa and Australia. Over the years, false rumors about his alleged suicide morphed and spread among his fans, without the artist even being aware of their existence to discredit them. Thus the search to discover what actually ever happened to “Sugar Man” began, and two fans found him—alive and kicking and unaware of his own, significant following.

The film, directed by Malik Bendjelloul, of course features the music of the artist himself, pulling from his two studio albums Cold Fact (1970) and Coming From Reality (1971) released by Sussex Records. Honestly, I had not had much interest in listening to any sort of Folk Rock or Americana up until recently, but Rodriguez was definitely the one to change that. His style of sound is often compared with the likes of Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens, and I’d say that’s a very appropriate likening. It’s a very particular style, but each song manages to be completely different from the one before it. It’s one of those situations where my favorite song on the soundtrack always happens to be the one that’s playing, but I suppose the song I actively choose to listen to the most is “Sandrevan Lullaby – Lifestyles.”

What is perhaps most compelling about Rodriguez is his natural blend of modesty and profoundness. Not only was he for so many years completely oblivious to his own fame and popularity, but even during his time of belated popularity within the States when he started performing again, he remained content with the humble lifestyle he had lived up until his rediscovery. When the documentary, part of which was actually filmed on an iPhone app, came out and began receiving awards, including an Oscar for Best Documenary, he refused to take credit for its success. It’s a sincere tone that seeps into his work as well. It’s what makes a single voice and the simple strumming of a guitar reach out to entire nations of people and cross boundaries of time.

-E, Blog Director

]]>http://kspc.org/movie-music-searching-for-sugar-man/feed/3Movie Music-Ruby Sparkshttp://kspc.org/movie-music-ruby-sparks/
http://kspc.org/movie-music-ruby-sparks/#commentsSat, 12 Oct 2013 08:32:49 +0000http://kspc.org/?p=3658I’m a dancer, so music has always been a very important part of my life. Truth be told, however, my taste in music, which happens to very eclectic if not somewhat bipolar, is based much more on gut reactions than any sort of foundation of expert knowledge.

In addition to dance and music, I absolutely LOVE movies, which is actually how I find most of my music. When I was young, I didn’t often listen to anything outside of the ballet variations during rehearsals or endless amounts of (brilliant but nevertheless endless) Fleetwood Mac, Springsteen, Beach Boys, and Cream of Clapton my mom played on repeat. I had maybe 20 songs memorized and didn’t even truly realize there was more than just one song on the Titanic soundtrack.

Once I started paying attention to movie music though, I became obsessed. The more movies I watched the more I realized just how vast the world of music was. Whether it was the “Imperial March” or that Smiths song playing in the beginning of the 500 Days of Summer trailer, I was listening.

Why? Because there’s something about the music playing in the background of a memorable scene that overwhelms your senses and awakens your deepest self, whether you realize it or not. It has the power to really trigger that emotional side of you, sometimes even without your permission. And despite the fact you probably don’t have a live soundtrack playing as you strut across the parking lot every day, a great song or score often manages to make a scene feel all the more real and meaningful.

The purpose of this feature is to highlight and share some of my favorite examples of movie music—both soundtracks and scores. I’ve been delighted to find that we actually have quite a few great albums in our library. I’ve already ranted on for much longer than I originally intended, so I’ll try to not go too in depth with my first pick, but for the few of you out there who decide to regularly check in, (*Side note: You’re the best!) you can expect a little more focus on the music and hopefully quite a wide range of great songs and albums in the future…

For my first pick I decided to go with Ruby Sparks, a great comedy-drama movie that came out in the summer of 2012 that sadly most people seem to have missed. It’s a really fun and charming Pygmalion spinoff that stars Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan, who also wrote the screenplay, and even includes a cameo appearance from Michael Silverblatt for you Bookworm fans out there. It’s directed by the same couple who did Little Miss Sunshine, Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, and even features music by Nick Urata, of the band DeVotchka who created the popular score for LMS.

In addition to some very peppy French songs that I can’t help but hold a dance party to every time I listen to them (Plastic Bertrand, Holden, and Sylvie Vartan are my favorites), the soundtrack includes a really beautiful score by Urata. Each piece adheres to a uniform, soulful style of strings and humming voices while remaining individually unique. Each one has something different to say, a different part of the same story to tell, and does so with great earnestness and sincerity. It’s a fabulous soundtrack and a great film if you get the chance to check it out.

That’s it for now, I swear. Be sure to keep checking back for more installments of Movie Music!